Where the Dead Pass
by Luna Tiger
Summary: Inland Sea introspective / If this is how it ends, is it so bad? / character death


**Title**: Where the Dead Pass  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: Sengoku Basara  
>- <em>Characters<em>: Chosokabe Motochika, Mouri Motonari (their sons)  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _If this is how it ends, is it so bad? _  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Taking history by the reigns and rendering it asunder even more than Basara already does, otherwise Nobuchika would be dead long before Papa Chosokabe ever kicked the bucket. Which is terribly sad. I'm also not very original with the sons, since I went and made them younger versions of their fathers (in personality, accidentally so; whoops). ChikaNari for the squinters in the audience. This was finished two months ago on 9/9.  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Character death  
>-<em>Completion date<em>: September 9th, '11

- b - e - g - i - n -

"Ha, found you." Chosokabe plopped down sociably on the sand beside Mouri, leaving little personal space for the general. "You're a hard person to find, you know?"

"I was right here," Mouri said simply. Chosokabe snorted.

"You're still difficult. Though I thought I looked over here. And you don't exactly blend in." He grinned cheekily. "Maybe I was just looking for your hat. It's quite absent from your head."

"Idiot."

"Now now, don't take that tone with me. I put effort into looking for your scrawny ass."

"I cannot imagine how you missed me in an open area like this."

Chosokabe glanced around casually. Mouri wasn't wrong. The beach and the grounds beyond were depressingly empty. It felt incredibly lonely just looking at it, and contented himself with the scenery beyond him, of the sun and sea. "I only have one eye," he defended.

"You never had trouble finding the brothels when you land."

"Oi, how did you know about that?"

"You just told me."

"Bastard fox."

"You are just easy, Chosokabe. As your prowess atones to."

"Feh."

"Why...are you looking from me, anyway?"

"Hum? ...Dunno," he said, surprised at his own lack of an answer. He was pretty sure he had had one. "I felt I had to, that's all."

Mouri smiled with superiority. "Animal instincts. Nothing human about you."

"Oi, bastard! A little heavy on the charm there, don't you think?"

"Perhaps your abdominal tastes migrated. Maybe the brothels do not satisfy you anymore."

"Don't even joke!" Mouri laughed, and it startled Chosokabe that it was _genuine_, as quiet as it was. "And you're not as inhuman as you like to make people believe. Your reputation is hereby tarnished."

"I see no witnesses." Mouri stood up to escape the slander, and meandered some ways to the edge of the surf. The sun was setting on them, and it cast the naked land behind them in all numbers of radiant colors, perhaps too well. "Is this truly the first time I have sat with you, Chosokabe?"

"Hha?" Chosokabe leaned back on his arms. "Those peace attempts don't count?"

"You were not exactly civil."

"You weren't hospitable yourself."

"Why do we sit here and simply talk-" Mouri glanced back over his shoulder. "-when we have never done so before?"

Chosokabe shrugged. "Don't feel like killing you, that's all."

It sounded sound. Mouri seemed incline to agree, given he honestly appeared relaxed. Which was odd, but nevertheless a vast improvement over stingy, stick-up-ass, fox-kin Mouri, Brilliant General of Stealing Mega-Awesome Sea Fortresses-ness _Bastardly Assholiness_. But Chosokabe hefted himself onto his feet as well, brushed his elbows clean of sand, and joined Mouri at the water. And maybe it was out of respect for the silent, fair land and the forgiving ocean, perhaps with hopes this could be the start of something that wasn't death and dying, he dared to bring a hand onto Mouri's shoulder-

Or so he tried. Chosokabe stared, mystified, at his hand that hovered mere inches away from the gentle slope of a shoulder. Mouri glanced over, eyeing the space between, and then finally, _finally_ looked Chosokabe Motochika, great pirate of the Setouchi, in the eyes.

Chosokabe shivered, unnerved by the _sadness _he was witness to. "Why can't I touch you?"

"Because," Mouri said plaintively, "you didn't make it."

- s - p - a - c - e -

Chosokabe Nobuchika stepped among the dead, crewmen trailing closely behind him, laying sorrowful eyes among brothers and strangers, pirates and militia. The battle was long-fought and a loss for both sides, where most, if not all men succumbed to weapons lost in their breast, thrust deep and cold. Bullets, swords, spears, arrows, steel drowning them in their own blood. But the Chosokame moved forward with heavy footfalls, until he could see the warrior entourage of Mouri Takamoto.

The thirteen year old boy was much like his father: pretty to the eye, sharp, and calculating. It was like looking at a fox. He was sure Takamoto would find in him no sure crafty creature, simply an old dog at sixteen himself. But without the Demon of the Western Sea to bend the way, Nobuchika was readily followed by his father's forces, and Takamoto was right to perceive a threat. Because this might get ugly.

No one of the Mouri said a word, and Takamoto rose to his feet from the muck, covered in grime and blood from head to toe. Apparently Nobuchika was the only sane one among the throng, preferring the power of heavy artillery and guns for a weapon, while Takamoto had a swallowtail sword broken down on his back. Nobuchika stopped a respectable distance, which was the other side of the scene before them all.

It was almost heretical, that they must survive battle after battle, only for both to fall, and not by either's hand, in a way that-given who they were talking about-made the truth hard to swallow. Mouri Motonari lay crumbled on his side, helmet either cast aside and retrieved or deliberately removed before they arrived. Chosokabe Motochika was a bit more of a sight, fell like one tree in the forest, face in the blood-soaked mud, arrows and a sword riddling his back, and his arm, outstretched in Mouri's direction, a mere foot away from Mouri's head.

"Lord Mouri fell first," reported Takamoto. "A spear through the back, my generals say, by a traitor. Lord Chosokabe saw Lord Mouri fall. He ran for Lord Mouri, and collapsed ten feet back. He crawled the rest of the way and died where he lay."

Nobuchika gave a nod, and surveyed them closer. Recalling every instance his father spoke of Mouri gave him a decent idea of what had gone through his father's mind. Time and time again, Chosokabe had mentioned how neither had touched the other; weapon always hit weapon, and never flesh, and once he joked flesh never touched flesh either. _"How funny would it be to never land a blow, only to get in some kind of sissy slap that would make my men think less of me? Mouri would cry ice, I think, since he hasn't been touched in so long! Ha ha ha! Block of ice, that one. If he didn't prey to the sun, he'd be a corpse. Bet if I wrapped my hand around his neck, it'd freeze!"_

This wasn't about taking Mouri's head. Because where Chosokabe joked, he still revered Mouri as the only man a match for Chosokabe's own navel prowess, "as horrible as his disposition is." Nobuchika knelt before his fallen father and carefully took the arm he had been reaching with. He wiped off as much of the mud as he could from the cooling fingers and palm, giving a silent prayer, snagged the sleeve of Mouri's armor before those of his clan could protest, and wrapped both their hands together. "You made it." _Have great battles together, in the afterlife._

Takamoto was three shades of red, fighting to keep a composure as cool as his father's. "How dare you?"

"How dare _you_!" Nobuchika rebutted, rising again. "I don't know what your closed-off father thought of mine, but Chosokabe Motochika thought the world of Mouri Motonari! Always waiting for the next battle, always came back wounded and elated, as long as their paths crossed! He was happiest here. And as certain as I know Mouri-dono wanted to cut my father down personally, my father wanted to do the same. Very badly. At least let me grant my father's last wish. Get him up, boys."

Somewhere across the field, four people were dragging Chosokabe's anchor back to the ship; Nobuchika gave a dry smirk, since he himself had no problem hefting Papa's weapon. As his entourage took great care and great pains to carry Chosokabe away, Nobuchika looked back to Takamoto, whose men were doing the same with their own master, and said, "Cease fire?"

"You insult us." Because there were proper channels and whatever these things had to go through, and Nobuchika blew through them without a damn care. In his mind, this was the best chance to instigate such a request. "Are you lost without your patron?"

"Which is what I would have said, had you suggested one. It's bull. Time to mourn, time to regroup, and time to keep an eye on Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. A temporary hold on the battle for the inland sea, that's all."

Takamoto's eyes narrowed and he was diligently handed his father's circular sword. "How long do you suggest?"

"One year. And we'll meet again here, on the anniversary. Finish what they started." He leaned forward. "And maybe I think you could stand to grow a little taller." Takamoto turned red in fury. "It's no fun taking the head of a flower when a tree is more satisfying."

A pair of curved blades found themselves underneath Nobuchika's jaw, where one push up would have him tasting metal in his mouth. "As if," Takamoto hissed, "a pirate could kill me, or am I not still standing here, ready to take your head you left so unguarded?"

"Not very unguarded." A hammer cocked out of eyesight. "Sa, Takamoto-dono. Call it a draw. I simply suggested what you have too much pride to say. May we see you on the battlefield in a year?"

A flickering glance briefly revealed the muzzle of a left-hand sidearm pointed toward Takamoto's flank, around one of the points in his armor that was weakest. The fox's son narrowed his eyes just a touch. "Have your time," Takamoto told him; the swords yanked away and Nobuchika felt their tips burn over his skin, but not cut. "Make the most of it."

- s - p - a - c - e -

Chosokabe's hand landed softly on Mouri's shoulder, in turn making Mouri's eyes round with shock. And Chosokabe grinned. "Didn't I?"


End file.
